


I'll Give Them Hope

by MidnightCarnival



Series: What Comes After [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mages and Templars, Past Abuse, Religion, The Chantry, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4343156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightCarnival/pseuds/MidnightCarnival
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian and Lucien discuss the Circles, religion, the Maker, and belief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Give Them Hope

"If you don't mind my asking, what was it like? In the Circle?" Dorian asked Lucien, his words sending dust motes stirring from the dusty tomes they had gathered between them, the motes spun into the still library air. Illuminated by the light of the high windows and the candle that was burning low on the table they shared. 

Lucien's brow rose at the question as he grudgingly pulled his attention away from his tome that detailed the histories of the Deep Roads and Darkspawn. It made for a tedious but overall interesting read, and given what they were fighting against, Lucien thought it wise to be well learned in such areas. 

Dorian had offered to read with him, that "two sets of eyes can pick out details that another is certain to gloss over". Unfortunately, it seemed Dorian had other ideas than to simply read dusty old tomes in companionable silence. 

"Surely you don't need to ask that question?" Lucien gestured at his covered forehead blandly, "You know that I was Tranquil already."

Dorian sighed, "Yes, yes, but I was rather curious about what it was like before that. I find it astounding the sheer amount of difference in a mage's experiences within your Circles. Take Vivienne for an example. The woman practically shouts her endorsements of the place." 

Lucien thumbed a corner of a tome absently, furrowing his brow in thought. "It..is a very...specific thing. You are right that experiences differ widely. I suppose there was a time that I did not think it so terrible." But that had been when he was new, when no one knew who he was, couldn't hurt him with their ideas of the right and the natural. Lucien thought bitterly. 

"Did you have friends there?" Dorian smiled, "I can't imagine you without a few dozen hangers on at least." Lucien snorted at that. 

"Hardly, I was from a noble family so the younger apprentices held no hidden amount of resentment for my precived status that I had over them." Lucien drummed his fingers on the hard wood of the table. 

"What the apprentices failed to understand that the senior mage's did was that the Circle was the great equalizer, second only to death I suppose." Lucien chuckled then, "But I suppose, some have found a way to conquer that even." He thought of Corypheus and his seeming inability to die.

"So no, I had few friends in the traditional sense of the word. Ostwick wasn't like some of the larger Circles in Orlais, it always had a more oppressive air hanging over it." Lucien frowns lightly, "Still, despite the limitations of freedom, most there had few complaints about their life there. You could say that before the fall of the other Circles, most were content to live their lives there. Albeit, a life spent prostate on their knees praying to be cured of their burden of magic." His frown sharpens as he recall's the new apprentices that would crowd the chantry, quietly muttering their desperate pleas to empty, incense sullied air. 

Lucien remembers being sickened by them, wishing he could overturn the alters and scatter the idols. He remembers wanting to tear down their beliefs around their ears and show them how the Maker chained them better than any metal found in any dark pit in the whole of Thedas. 

"But that was not a life you wanted." Its not really a question, but Lucien answers Dorian as if it was one. 

"No, no." Lucien smirks, "It may be shocking, but despite being proclaimed Herald, my faith has never been particularly strong." Lucien chuckles then. "That is putting it too lightly. I was angry when I was first put into the Circle by my Family, I rightly understood the reason they cut off contact with me was due to their beliefs in the Chantry's teachings. Had I not been Tranquil at the time, I would have likely jumped in joyful celebration when I learned of the events in Kirkwall." Lucien rubs his covered mark in remembrance of that day. How he dully took note of the frantic whispering of the apprentices and the twitchy sword hands of the Templars.

Dorien cocks a perfectly manicured brow, "You don't seem nearly as...fanatic now. If anything you've been quite courteous to all Chantry officials that have come to Skyhold." 

Lucien sighs, "I suppose, as horrible as it sounds, that Tranquility and receiving the anchor mellowed me. I still don't quite believe in the Maker, and I still abhor the Chantry, but...." Lucien pauses a moment, hands folded tightly in front of him. Dorian, for his part, allows him to gather his thoughts, for which Lucien is infinitely grateful to the man. 

"But I understand now that belief in something greater is not what corrupts, power does, and power is what creates fanatics. I have seen terrible things done on both ends of the spectrum while the people in the middle simply try to be....good for the sake of being good." Lucien smiles, his eyes looking far away, a memory. 

"I recall, from my youth, there was an Elven serving maid in our estate. She worked her fingers to the bone cleaning floors and waiting on my family's beck and call, all for too little money that she would donate half to the Chantry as a tithe anyway." Lucien's smile turns rueful, "when I was in the Circle, I thought her yet another victim of the Chantry. First they destroy her people's history, leaving them nothing but poverty and slavery, and yet she was made to give her paltry sum to further stuff the Chantry coffers." Lucien shakes his head. "I was wrong." 

"How were you wrong?" Dorien asks, his face a picture of curiosity. Lucien smiles fondly at him and it sends a little flutter through Dorian's chest.

"Don't you see? The maid didn't give her sum because she felt forced to, she did it because it gave her hope that at least in the eyes of a god, she was equal."

Lucien's face becomes resolute, "If there is a Maker, I intend to prove to the world that that is true. That Human, Qunari, Elf, Dwarf, and Mage are all the Makers children, and it is the right of no man to elevate any as greater than the other."

"And if there is no Maker?" Dorian asks.

Lucien frowns, "Then I'll do it myself. Even if it kills me."


End file.
